Those madcap galoots, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), are trying to escape a band of chalk-faced aboriginals on the Class-M planet Nibiru. Having broken a Starfleet rule by intervening in a prehistoric civilization, they run for their lives, like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby hightailing it out of Zanzibar after one of their schemes went kaflooey. Reaching a cliff, with the natives in angry pursuit, Jim and Bones leap desperately toward the water far below. Now they’re Butch and Sundance, in every way except for yelling, “S—!” as they plummet to safety. They’re just one Enterprise crew member short of being the Three Stooges.

Actually, Moe — Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) — is trapped nearby in an erupting volcano, its spewing lava reminiscent of the kitsch special effects from the 1940 One Million B.C., but in 3-D and gaudy color. Kirk, back on the Enterprise, ignores another Starfleet dictum and flies into the inferno to rescue Spock; the primitive Nibirians gape at the spacecraft with the same perplexed wonder as the apes at the 2001 monolith. When the Enterprise returns to Earth, Rear Admiral Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) demotes Kirk to Starfleet Academy and separates him from Spock. Pike might be an exasperated homeroom teacher forced to keep two troublemakers apart — or a father regretting that he gave his reckless teen son the keys to the starship.

Any prequel series to a movie franchise is obliged to imagine younger versions of famous characters. We know from the Star Trek TV series, spawned in 1966 by Gene Roddenberry, and from the six subsequent feature films starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, that Kirk is the man of action, Spock the half-Vulcan half-man of thought. J.J. Abrams applied that dichotomy to his 2009 Star Trek reboot and now to the first sequel to the prequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. (Abrams has his plate full with revered sci-fi franchises. Disney has entrusted him with reviving Star Wars.)

The difference between the Roddenberry and Abrams Kirks: This one has a severe case of arrested development. He’s always spoiling for a fight that might endanger his crew, nay, alter the fate of the universe. Not that Into Darkness doesn’t provide bustling fun equal to its modest ambitions or that the script (by the writing duo of Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman and Abrams’ co-creator of Lost, Damon Lindelof) doesn’t find rich plunder in the maleficence of an early Star Trek villain. But with its emphasis on its hero’s adolescent anger, the movie turns this venerable science-fiction series — one that prided itself on addressing complex issues in a nuanced and mature fashion — into its own kids’ version: Star Trek Tiny Toons. At times, the viewer is almost prodded to mutter, “Grow up!”

When catastrophe reunites the crew members for one more mission, we find the rest of them suffering growing pains as well. Spock, who’s hardly on speaking terms with Kirk after the Nibiru caper, endures a puppy-love spat with Communications Officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg) has a tiff with Kirk and decides to sit this voyage out, though he’ll prove useful later. That leaves Ensign Chekov (Anton Yelchin) to keep the Enterprise from exploding midflight — another case of a boy trying to do a man’s job. Ship’s helmsman Sulu (John Cho) is not prominent enough to have a teething problem; he and Bones prowl the craft and work to keep their less stable colleagues out of trouble.

The Enterprise also has a stowaway, Carol Marcus (Alice Eve). Security must be lax under Kirk’s command, especially as regarding a pretty blonde. Carol adds the requisite erotic tension — actually sub-erotic, since sexual interest is irrelevant in a boys-in-space epic. There was more sincere budding love in Abrams’ last film, the excellent Super 8, in which four 12-year-old boys teamed with a 14-year-old girl to do battle against an alien invasion and its government cover-up. Those middle schoolers faced their challenges far more sensibly than some of the Enterprise crew members do theirs. They’re like the kids from Glee charged with saving the universe — or getting a third season for Smash. (All right, some missions are impossible.)

** Warning! Spoilers ahead **

A few grownups step into this Darkness. Pike is the mutton-chopped father figure who, in the 2009 Star Trek, saved Kirk from a bar fight with space cadets and recommended him for the academy. Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller, more than a quarter-century after he starred in RoboCop) is Pike’s superior and Carol’s dad; his galactic trigger finger proves even itchier than Kirk’s. But the real adult supervision comes from a fellow named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Harrison mounts a one-man 9/11-style terrorist assault on Starfleet Central, destroys the archive housing Klingon intel and, in the process, wipes out so many of the senior officers that Kirk and the gang, among the few survivors, are assigned to capture him on Kronos, the Klingon home planet.

Good luck with that. “He is ruthless, brilliant and will not hesitate to kill every single one of you,” warns Spock Prime (Nimoy, back for another fleeting guest shot). Harrison is also the movie’s one compelling character, and if you want to know his true identity, don’t read the cast list on the Internet Movie Database. We shall say only that he has his origins in the “Space Seed” episode of the TV show’s first season; he later graced one of the best of the feature films. (For teasing purposes, we’ll add that that picture’s title anagrams to What the ho, Frank! and the actor’s name to Drat! Abnormal Icon!) Cumberbatch raises the anxiety level and performance standard whenever he’s onscreen. As the latest Sherlock Holmes on BBC, he has embodied a supersmart hero of the 1890s. Here he is the supersmart villain of the 1990s, teleported to the 23rd century.

** All Clear! You have left the Spoiler Zone **

With high cheekbones and the penetrating stare of a superior automaton — or maybe just a posh Englishman looking pityingly on the other, mostly American actors — Cumberbatch infuses Into Darkness with a creepy class. Everyone else has to make do by looking fabulous. Chris Pine’s face has the blurry handsomeness of James Dean painted on velvet. (When he and Greenwood confront each other, going eyeball to eyeball, the only question is: Whose are bluer?) Saldana, remembered as the Pandoran princess in Avatar, wears eyelashes as long as light-years; and on Kronos, when she speaks Klingon, it sounds like a Sonnet from the Portuguese. Eve, the perfect woman in She’s Out of My League, provides light-dark contrast to Saldana and flashes her panties, perhaps to establish her availability as a Kirk girlfriend in a later episode.

Can a woman ever lasso this wild man? His heroic impulsiveness occasionally translates as the crackpottery of a gung-ho sergeant leading his men into the Big Galactic Muddy. When Pike disciplines Kirk and reminds him that he is meant to be primarily an explorer, not a warrior, it might be the spirit of Gene Roddenberry speaking. The original series didn’t hold to the suspicious, maybe paranoid belief that each new planet (read: the Soviet Union) harbored a doomsday threat to Starfleet (read: America). The show sought accommodation and understanding with distant peoples as much as triumph over alien warlords. That’s why Kirk and Spock had equal dramatic and ethical pull.

Parables of equanimity suit a TV series more than an action picture; one is essentially liberal, the other conservative. And the ’60s, they were so long ago. Abrams knows that every contemporary sci-fi film is really a war movie and that Star Trek, to be modern, had to grow a tougher skin. Kirk, the rogue warrior, may be heading for the borderline of sociopathy, but he has to be right in his hunches about the predatory nature of the creatures out there. Yet that makes Spock an irrelevancy — the professor type from old sci-fi movies who tried reasoning with the evil or barbarous life forms before they swatted him into unconsciousness. A pacifist who hopes to be Magellan, Spock must stand aside while the cowboy king does his thing.

One aspect of Star Trek, at least, has to be honored in any prequel. Our planet and the universe can be on the brink of annihilation, but most of the Enterprise crew members are immortal; they must survive to populate the 1966 TV show. Into Darkness flirts with the demise of one prominent character, but when he revives, Bones says, “Oh, don’t be melodramatic. You were barely dead.” This series will survive as well, until 2016 — when, you can bet, there will be a third Star Trek to celebrate the TV show’s 50th anniversary. Here’s hoping that those three years will bestow a measure of maturity on all concerned: Kirk and his bright curators too.

Horrible review. Inaccurate, lightweight. Time for Corliss to retire. Anyone with ANY ability to read between the lines has just enjoyed about a half dozen prime spoilers. Don't say I didn't warn you....

It's a truism in the movie-reviewer biz that the movie is not the novel. Nor is it the TV series. Nor is it any of the previous movies.

I suspect that Richard Corliss is, like me, a fan of the TV version of Star Trek. J. J. Abrams famously is not. He wanted to make a film that would appeal to fen like us but ALSO have something for anyone who walked into the theater without an inkling of anything that might have gone before. That was a tall order, but I think he and his writing partners pulled it off with aplomb.

Wow.
I think this review really missed the mark. The cast is younger than we saw
them in the original series, they are supposed to be maturing, learning and
growing. Due to the circumstances of the first film, they were thrust into
command positions long before they were ready. As a friend of mine said when
Chekhov was frantically trying (and failing) to stop the you-know-what from
hitting the fan in engineering: "There's a reason you don't leave an
eighteen year old in charge of your warp core" and it took the experience
of Mr. Scott to solve the problem. The scene that belies
this review is the one towards the end where Kirk and Spock save the
ship and crew, each in his own way, by trying to think of what the other would
have done. As the older Kirk and Spock did, they learned from one another and
their respective personalities were tempered while not fundamentally changed.

Though a big fan, I thought Bernard Cumberbatch was a stereotypical
way-over-the-top British villain which didn't even make sense since he was
supposed to be an Indian Sikh. Must all of our villians have a
proper British accent? It would have been much better if they had
gone with a more ethnically correct actor (is there anyone who doesn't want to
see Dr. Raj Koothrapalli kick some galactic butt?) or done the
supersoldier story line without any reference to Khan. Why couldn't they
be volunteers who were genetically tinkered with that Admiral Marcus decided to
destroy once he realized he couldn't control them?

I agree on the relationship tiff between Uhura and Spock; it was silly,
immature and out of character. I was even more perplexed that Carol
Marcus could just slip aboard a Starfleet ship on a manhunt mission of extreme
importance. I can't even get into my office without my badge. I really enjoyed
this movie, in fact I'm sure I will own it soon, but the re-imagined
universe is an opportunity for imaginations to run wild. There is no need
to dredge up old storylines. What next? A casting call for Joan Collins
lookalikes for City on the Edge of Forever 2.0? Free your mind Mr Abrams, and
the rest will follow.

For me, watching this latest Star Trek movie was like watching M Night Shyamalan do Avatar The Last Airbender, or like watching that Star Wars dance videogame. Why rape the franchise?

They came up with yet another cliche warmongering-general-behind-it-all trope, and they had this English guy play Khan, who looks nothing like Ricardo Montalban. At least Pine looks like Shatner, Quinto looks like Nimoy, and Urban looks like Bones. But while Cumberpatch is a great actor, he absolutely looks shoe-horned in as Khan. He would have been better off playing Loki. If you're going to go that route, why not an Asian Uhura or a Black Sulu then?

There was a scene at the start which looked like a blatant rip-off of the Helicarrier scene in Joss Whedon's Avengers. There were so many scenes in this movie that looked like ripoffs of other movies. Why even have a "rebooted" universe at all, if these newer movies are exactly tracking the older movies, including putting Khan into the 2nd installment?

I like how a lot of these complaints are coming from middle-aged men who treats new Trekkies like they just stepped a foot on their lawns. I think it's the detractors that need to grow up. Either watch the new Star Trek or don't, but don't bash other people for liking it.

I have to agree with your use of the term "arrested development." It kind of worked in the first prequel (loosely) but I can't imagine it working again. By the way, I just found out, reading your article, than Damon Lindelof was responsible for part of the script. That dunderhead is the one who screwed up the Prometheus plot line and apparently is getting a whack at the new Star Wars script.

I could not stand Lost, due to the insanely chaotic and loose story lines. Actually loved the characters but after the first season through halfway into the second, my head started to hurt. Lindelof couldn't write himself out of a paper bag. The only reason he is still employed after that Prometheus debacle is due to his friend J.J. All I have to do prove to you how bad it is, let’s look at the space cobra’s from Prometheus.They guys just stood there going “here little buddy, how are you doing in, maybe they want to be friends.”Just poor writing and I also blame Scott for allowing that writing to go forward.He should have said no but I found out that Lindelof was also the Executive Producer which created a huge problem.

And then he goes "At times, the viewer is almost prodded to mutter, “Grow up!”.

That's the point, Sir. This is NOT the grown up, confident, "mature" crew from the 1960's and 80's. The entire concept is of a younger version of the original crew existing in parallel universe as a result of the events of the last film.

This Kirk lost his real father to a space battle and had a dysfunctional relationship with his mother and stepfather. This Spock lost his family and home world.

Wow! They "must survive to populate the 1966 series"--didn't see the first movie, did you Corliss? I'd venture to say that it's appropriate for this Kirk, a significantly more damaged Kirk than the original timeline Kirk, to grow through a juvenile, aggressive, angry stage in order to eventually become the balanced leader we recognize.

It's just a movie! Not negotiations for world peace. Who has time to take something like this so crazy seriously. Yikes - you all must be a real blast to hang out with....

I've seen it - it's fun - not really much depth or substance and it is jarring that Cumberbatch is so much better than every other performer that it's like a different film when he's on screen. It's one thing when an actor is so much more talented than some of the cast but when one actor is better than all of the cast, the difference is startling.

Don't you all go to the movies to relax, get out of your own head and away from real life stuff? To expect something to stay on the same track for so many decades without ever altering any of the canon is, at best, wishful thinking - unless the original writers and directors can be cloned.

The last paragraphs proves you are an idiot. Did you even see the first re-imagined (that's a hint) Star Trek? If not you should have at least done some research. I'll let you figure out if you can, why you are an idiot.

You can put liptstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Abrams is just pumping out your typical Transformers-style action flicks, and stamping the word "Star Trek" on it. I've watched all the incarnations of Star Trek since the beginning, and I can tell you Abrams last Trek movie, and from all accounts this one... do not feel like Star Trek. The magic is gone. Better to die being who you are, than allow others to change you into something you're not. Of course the studio raking in the dough begs to differ, no doubt.

Clearly, the review was NOT written by a science fiction fan, nor a Star Trek fan. He is obviously biased against the genre. And he contradicted himself on a number of points. Way, way too much sarcasm and not nearly enough substance. I give this review a "2" out of a possible "10".

What a pathetic review that completely misses the point. I can't even imagine what you'd say if we got to see a young Picard fight Nausicaans on the big screen ... "oh my, that isn't the Captain Picard that I know, he isn't addressing the pressing issues of the time, why doesn't he just grow up already!"

Seriously, Abrams is doing a great job at walking the line between making all of us Trekkies happy with his interpretation and opening up the world of Kirk and Spock to The Next Generation.

So wait, you are saying that a boy version is less mature than the man version of himself? So, if we were all to go back in our lives and have movies made, then our 20 year old self should be the same mature, intelligent person we are at 40? It seems to me Abrams is doing a great job of showing the qualities of a boy that, when he learns from his mistakes, becomes a man with much more wisdom. A person with intelligence is as wise as his mistakes have let him become. The more mistakes an intelligent person makes, the more wise they are when they are older.

The New Star Trek movie gets off on being"Dark" and "Oh so mysterious" and they can not seem to come up with a better plot than a back stabbing turn coat? They went down the wrong route IMHO. I hope it tanks. It is a stinker.

When I imagine what a wonderful thing it used to be, I even liked the first Prequel, It was a return to greatness.

To all critics: it is evident why you couldn`t make it as movie stars. So, grow up. It is only entertainment and since tasste is not to be criticised, No one listens. Get another job, please. It will be better for the whole planet

I agree with the reviewer that Star Trek as a TV series exploring
the issues of the day has faced an uphill battle as a sci fi action adventure
motion picture. Abrams' solution was to turn it into a summer action movie
along the lines of Transformers and Iron
Man. It has all the ingredients
for box office success: top writers who understand their demographic, a famous
title, a famous hero and a vast special effects budget. What it is not is a
movie for watching from September to April, or watching more than twice. It is
shot in 3D but it has a two-dimensional outlook, and in all the Light Years it
travels, it doesn't require the audience to move beyond superficial outrage and
reactionary adolescent thinking. It's fun - hundred-million-dollar fun. People
will feel good after they have seen it, for up to an hour in some cases. But
people won't be talking about Star Trek: Into Darkness in 20 or 30 or 50 years
time like they talk about Lawrence of Arabia or The Magnificent Seven or The
Terminator. It won't change people's views on human conflict like Platoon or
The Cruel Sea. It will fill the bottom line handsomely but it won't influence
the next generation of filmmakers because its real purpose is to provide the
audience with something to look at while they escape the heat.

TIME needs to hire some new writers. So many spelling errors. "Sherlock HOMES on BBC"... really??? It's Holmes for gods sake. Learn the difference between too, to, two. Terrible article, terrible content. I hope the movie is better than this article, I am guessing it will be.

"One aspect of Star Trek, at least, has to be honored in any prequel. Our planet and the universe can be on the brink of annihilation, but most of the Enterprise crew members are immortal; they must survive to populate the 1966 TV show. "

False. The Abrams reboot of Star Trek takes place in an "alternate universe" thus having no impact on the 1966 TV show's crew. This was explained in the first movie.

Roddenberry would roll in his grave if he saw these POS movies. Sure graphically, they're stimulating, but the story lines are quite... elementary in complexity. Very similar to the "New" Star Wars films, which included more lightsabers and fights... to captivate a "simpler" audience, only looking for battle scenes and flashy lights.

@SanMann Paramount had been milking Star Trek for a long time--quantity over quality--until they finally burned it out during the early years of the Millennium. Once they milked it dry, there was nothing left to do with Star Trek except turn it towards self-parody and transform it an action-effects adrenaline movie franchise for all the adolescent head-bangers to enjoy. My prediction is that this won't last long either. If we could have but one-more hour of Gene Roddenberry! THAT would be the reboot it needs, which it got back in 1987 with the Next Generation.

BS - the least Abrams could have done was to respect the fanbase. After all, it's us existing fans who helped make Star Trek into the successful franchise that it is. If he didn't care for the existing fanbase, he could have gone and made a movie on a totally new property, like CloverVomit or SuperStandByMe8.

@IamLee No I don't just go to the movies "to relax, get out of your own head and away from real life stuff". I also go to the movies to be inspired, to feel connected to something larger and to see life from someone else's point of view. If I want to see a stupid cartoon and "get out of my head" I can stay home and watch Bugs Bunny.

@pntherpaw86 I'll bite. In needlessly getting into a confrontation with the Nausicans, Picard exhibited perfectly consistent behavior for a young, immature, brash cadette. Kirk, on the other hand, is also exhibiting perfectly consistent behavior for a young, immature, brash cadette. The part where the story ceases to be believable is that Starfleet would allow someone this brash and immature through sheer force of will to attain command of anything.

@MichaelJohnAnthony You mention great ones but did not mention the granddaddy of great stories that took a dangerous stance and had ground-breaking techniques for the day; "Citizen Kane." They are talking about that one 70 years later. :-)

@BACONbits, the last Star Trek was far better than any movie that Roddenberry ever put out there. Far better writting, smarter, more interesting, and yes better action. Roddenberry was overrated, outside of Wrath of Khan (which happened because thankfully the studio said no to Roddenberry's idiotic pitch) the old movies were thin and kinda dumb. It's really funny to hear anyone say Roddenberry's movies had "complexity" because they were incredibly trivial and forgettable.

@IamLee Come to think of it, Star Trek has dealt with "world peace" numerous times, from the Cold War-derived motion picture "The Undiscovered Country" to classic series parables like "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield." Commenting on familiar current issues is how Trek originally built its fan base.

@WJK1@ladiesman2009 TIME, I'm happy that you go back and edit after someone complains. But you know, it would be smarter to hire an actual editor who reads articles before you post them! Didn't we all learn about proper writing techniques in grade school?!

@MichaelJohnAnthony Do you go to Star Trek movies to have your life changed? I thought it was a lot of fun as I did Iron Man 3, Thor and Avengers but they are what they are. Entertainment. Some films do actually make a statement such as Life Is Beautiful, but I think most of us know what we're getting into when we go see a Star Trek or Marvel or DC Comics film.

@MichaelJohnAnthony I don't know if I'll enjoy it or not; you assume too much about my preferences. I'm just saying the review is overwrought. Just another frustrated novelist trying to prove how clever he is while saying a lot of nothing. I really miss Roger Ebert.

Essentially what I was getting at, is that 'non stop action' isn't Star Trek's style. And I don't believe it should be. Just like the newer Star Wars movies, the new ST movies seem to go out of their way to put action scenes in.

I think some of the best ST movies were First Contact, and Nemesis... (I'm a Next Gen fan) Not for their action, what 10 minute scene there was... but for the plot and seeing the diplomatic and level headed decisions must be made to achieve the goals of the movie. If there were action scenes, they were because there was no other option for the Captain and crew.